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Mike Ybarra, Corporate VP of Xbox: Anthem critics “whining”; “embarrassing to review with such a lack of knowledge”
- Thread starter AlexxKidd
- Start date
DunDunDunpachi
Patient MembeR
https://powerup-gaming.com/2018/04/05/microsoft-marketing-exclusive-borderlands-anthem/
Found this, I don't know how correct it is, back from April, take with grain of salt. It kind of makes sense as much of the Destiny stuff has been playstation side of the house.
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NeonGhost
uses 'M$' - What year is it? Not 2002.
Yes Microsoft has the marketing rights for anthem also have bundles with the game
ANIMAL1975
Member
Bingo!
Borderlands 3, forever unclean. Flop confirmed.
Zephir
Member
Andromeda was still "just" a singleplayer RPG, they could have just dump it easily without major consequences (and they did)...Anthem is a game as a service, they can still be profitable with little effort thanks to the microtransactions
Solid Slammus
Member
the game mechanic in question is not well-explained by the game itself and a lot of people who have played the game have corroborated that.
not that I think game reviewers couldn't stand to be better at games, but 'better' isn't always the problem. sometimes a game is just obtuse
Sakura Doritos
Member
I don’t know man. I can understand the tumultuous Destiny 2 launch. The Taken king imo was fantastic and the other expansion At the end was ok I hear. So going from that to 2 was kinda shit.
We are now comparing a D2 post content and major reworks to a game that obviously has had rework to not Battlefront 2 players come out later than expected. But it has no baseline except for EA hatred and feelings of Betrayal by ME fans. I get it.
But I have more time in this game from the Demo and the Early acces, which is shit practice I agree, and I find this game more enjoyable than D2 right now. And I like D2 a lot. I’m also. Huuuge War Frame fanatic. I don’t expect these to all be on the same page.
I get the reviews. Their is stuff to criticize and the game demo definitely didn’t do any reviewers Justice since they report on what they play.
But the narrative around this game is getting out of control. There is a good game in what is there. Can’t wait until Friday.
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ethomaz
Banned
Actually what he is talking about is a gaming issue and it is not explained ingame... so reviewers or us gamers doesn't have to know what is not told to you.
It a game have confused and not explained mechanics then I will agree with removing points from the scores.
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Vawn
Banned
Buy Xbox One S, get Anthem!
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
WHOA! Who is picking the games over there?
Dabaus
Banned
Well be fair its not like MS can pick and choose who they partner with. Theyre down 2:1 world wide, completely dead in continental Europe and Asia. I think one of the reasons dude is in such a panic is because Anthem represents and is the quintessential "Xbox" game experience MS has been pushing lately. An always online, Games as a service, coop adventure with friends. Its the type of game MS has bet the farm on going into the future and is one of the premiere studios MS has trusted in the past. And its falling flat on its face, in terms of reviews at least.
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Yoshi
Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
That is, unless it's the game's fault, e.g. by having shit controls.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Very true. I wonder if MS will learn anything from there experience. Maybe Games as a Service shouldn't be where they are putting most of their eggs in a basket. It's hard enough to just make a good game without online capabilities. Just seems so weird to make GaaS games be your bread and butter when so much can go wrong.
Jigsaah
Gold Member
Andromeda was not just a single player RPG. There was multiplayer, shallow as it was, that also had microtransactions. It greatly mirrored Mass Effect 3's multiplayer, just with Andromeda's mobility. So your point is pretty much null and void from that point on.
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Zephir
Member
Will you belive me if I say I totally forgot there was a multiplayer mode there?
JareBear: Remastered
Banned
Believed, understood, and forgiven, my son
LuvOfThaGame
Banned
I would say bad timing, but he's not wrong.
Jigsaah
Gold Member
Yes, the multiplayer is quite forgettable.
From his job description, it seems like he would be a big part of decision making or part of the a team in regard to game development and partnering. Probably a ton of frustration over there, but its a ton of bad decisions over a long time scale - kind of a mini-"DEAL WITH IT" moment. Blaming the reviewers is a no win situation, generally speaking. It would be better as a post-mortem say 12 months out, discuss the failure like, "the title could have been better at showing the gamer how it works or what it was about as gamers were confused". Blaming the "reviewer" isn't much different than blaming the "customer", generally speaking, I could see in particular instances where it might be good to point out things but not like this.
The reviewers are reviewing his work or his teams works (at least from what I can gather from his job description) in a general sense. (Got to have thick skin and take it, and get better)
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Wesleyalucard
Member
Poor Mike Ybarra, six years of suffering
Gamernyc78
Banned
Was going to buy Anthem however won't be committing another Destiny 2 scenario although Destiny was alright I always felt like I wasn't given a complete game.
Barakov
Member
Oh jeez. Totally forgot Jumpforce was at their press conference. Nearly all of those games are a turd in some respect. No wonder Ybarra is leaking sodium.
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ethomaz
Banned
The game launched Feb 15 for Premium users but he probably knows that.
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Dabaus
Banned
Anthem XB1S bundle across Amazon.
UK #1070
Germany #1344
France #3771
USA #1007
Saw this floating around online that someone else posted. No idea if its true or not but if so theres a lot of implications here:
-First of all January NPD For MS was 101k(Switch was 284k and ps4 was 195k for context). To add injury to insult the one s was 50 dollars off and the 1X was 399. PS4 had no deals in January. Almost sub 100k purchases in their strongest market in a month. Were probably looking at a sub 200k month world wide, while switch and PS4 are probably 500k plus per month. I don't know how xbox can sustain any hype until late 2020 with this kind of showing if it continues.
-Xbox one X was not been the shot in the arm MS needed to sustain long term marketshare growth and in likelihood was probably selling to already converted xbox one owners. I have no evidence to back this claim but I doubt a 500 dollar console attracted a lot of new people.
-Third party game splits, at where we get information anyways, shows a consistent 60:40 split for larger western AAA games and 80:20 splits for AAA Japanese games. This trend has been consistent but the spin is "But Xbox gamers download more games than usual." That may be true but PS4 gamers can download said games too and we don't know sales splits for those.
-Finally, Anthem is the Quintessential "Xbox" experience MS has been chasing all gen. Its what Sea of thieves, PUBG, and state of decay wish they could be in terms of production values and hype. And yet its getting mediocre reviews, and apparently bundles aren't helping at all. It may end up doing well when its all said and done but it wont be the phenomenon MS needs a game like this to be if GAAS type games are what they are betting the farm on.
UK #1070
Germany #1344
France #3771
USA #1007
Saw this floating around online that someone else posted. No idea if its true or not but if so theres a lot of implications here:
-First of all January NPD For MS was 101k(Switch was 284k and ps4 was 195k for context). To add injury to insult the one s was 50 dollars off and the 1X was 399. PS4 had no deals in January. Almost sub 100k purchases in their strongest market in a month. Were probably looking at a sub 200k month world wide, while switch and PS4 are probably 500k plus per month. I don't know how xbox can sustain any hype until late 2020 with this kind of showing if it continues.
-Xbox one X was not been the shot in the arm MS needed to sustain long term marketshare growth and in likelihood was probably selling to already converted xbox one owners. I have no evidence to back this claim but I doubt a 500 dollar console attracted a lot of new people.
-Third party game splits, at where we get information anyways, shows a consistent 60:40 split for larger western AAA games and 80:20 splits for AAA Japanese games. This trend has been consistent but the spin is "But Xbox gamers download more games than usual." That may be true but PS4 gamers can download said games too and we don't know sales splits for those.
-Finally, Anthem is the Quintessential "Xbox" experience MS has been chasing all gen. Its what Sea of thieves, PUBG, and state of decay wish they could be in terms of production values and hype. And yet its getting mediocre reviews, and apparently bundles aren't helping at all. It may end up doing well when its all said and done but it wont be the phenomenon MS needs a game like this to be if GAAS type games are what they are betting the farm on.
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iconmaster
Banned
Judgment day is immanent.
The Mad Draklor
Member
He's effectively whining how his company backed the wrong horse...
Jigsaah
Gold Member
Ya know I generally like Mike, this seems a bit out of character for him. I understand where he's coming from, as the game has a metacritic score prior to the embargo lifting, but at the same time lets be honest. There are things that a day 1 patch just can't fix. The progression design can't be fixed with a day 1 patch. The mission design won't be fixed with a patch. The fact that weapons lack uniqueness and variety such as Destiny's weapons do...won't be fixed with a patch. So what does Mike say after Feb 22nd? Just wait for the first expansion?
Let's face it, Microsoft bet on a lame horse. Sony did the same with Destiny and Destiny 2. Critically, Destiny 2 was a bad game, eventually made better too little too late for a lot of Destiny fans, myself included. One huge difference is the point in which each games flaws were truly realized. Anthem pulled back the curtain on it's semi-finished game with the demo and guarded it with excuses that it was a 6week old build and patches were coming...we know the rest. Destiny was mechanically solid...but people were shocked when they reached the end of the game in vanilla Destiny 1. The backlash was immense, but Activision had made their money. EA will most certainly suffer a different result.
Another huge difference is that we as an audience have had it with these unfinished games at this point in time and Anthem is going to get the brunt of this sentiment. When Destiny released we were more or less just being introduced to the looter shooter genre, leaving only Borderlands 1 and 2 ( complete games) to reference. Many gave it a pass. The content we did eventually get was awesome, though pricey. Anthem is claiming there will be no paid DLC, which for me would warrant a purchase, if the game wasn't so broken.
It's like EA is playing a marketing whack a mole with their games. Solve paid dlc problem, but the game is broken and boring now. Solve the broken problem in Battlefield 5, but now you got SJW BS to deal with and gamers who've all of a sudden become historians of the highest pedigree (I don't agree with criticism of women being featured in a WW2 game). I've gone on a bit of a tangent...after the second paragraph i just let my thoughts spill out onto this post. Sorry if this is unwelcome.
Let's face it, Microsoft bet on a lame horse. Sony did the same with Destiny and Destiny 2. Critically, Destiny 2 was a bad game, eventually made better too little too late for a lot of Destiny fans, myself included. One huge difference is the point in which each games flaws were truly realized. Anthem pulled back the curtain on it's semi-finished game with the demo and guarded it with excuses that it was a 6week old build and patches were coming...we know the rest. Destiny was mechanically solid...but people were shocked when they reached the end of the game in vanilla Destiny 1. The backlash was immense, but Activision had made their money. EA will most certainly suffer a different result.
Another huge difference is that we as an audience have had it with these unfinished games at this point in time and Anthem is going to get the brunt of this sentiment. When Destiny released we were more or less just being introduced to the looter shooter genre, leaving only Borderlands 1 and 2 ( complete games) to reference. Many gave it a pass. The content we did eventually get was awesome, though pricey. Anthem is claiming there will be no paid DLC, which for me would warrant a purchase, if the game wasn't so broken.
It's like EA is playing a marketing whack a mole with their games. Solve paid dlc problem, but the game is broken and boring now. Solve the broken problem in Battlefield 5, but now you got SJW BS to deal with and gamers who've all of a sudden become historians of the highest pedigree (I don't agree with criticism of women being featured in a WW2 game). I've gone on a bit of a tangent...after the second paragraph i just let my thoughts spill out onto this post. Sorry if this is unwelcome.
Plague Doctor
Member
What's weirder is that he didn't do this in defense of a game his corporation published just a week ago. It either shows that the money/stakes in Anthem was a lot higher than Crackdown 3 or EA (behind the scenes) is stressful as fuck to work with.
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Vawn
Banned
He probably figured the backlash would be 10x worse. That, or even he understood that game got the reviews it deserved.
Dabaus
Banned
Makes you wonder if there was a bidding war between sony and Microsoft, and Microsoft was willing to pay the most. Just pure speculation but I do find it curious that MS is willing to circle the wagons as it were for this game in particular.
Jigsaah
Gold Member
Are you referring to the Xbox community? Anthem community? Should I just ignore this drive-by comment altogether?
well said MY.
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Sub_Level
wants to fuck an Asian grill.
Which is a shame because Mass Effect 3 had one of the greatest all-time horde modes.
Jigsaah
Gold Member
It was great for it's time. If they would have innovated on more than your character's movement...maybe gave the enemies better AI and movement...I think it would be nice. For me, Andromeda's multiplayer just made me want to play Warframe. Far better experience.
DigitalScrap
Member
With the exception of Forza Horizon, I agree with you about everything else (and one series out of everything is still horrible). They do seem to have the reverse Midas touch this generation. I'm not quite sure why that is either - they can't seem to back the right games no matter how hard they try.
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StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
It' Twitter. It's humans with too much to say. You'd think a VP would know better. Nope. Time to tweet and get things off my chest like a manchild.
SlashBringingHasher
Banned
ybarra is a jackass and always has been. phil is a much more professional and pleasant person . get rid of ybarra. he tries to be nice but hes always condescending
Crew 511A
Member
It's been brutal. I wish they'd just buy Sega and tell them to go to town with their old IP's.
